Crazy Fans

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Blog Tour: Mean Streak by Sandra Brown

Dr. Emory Charbonneau, a pediatrician and marathon runner, disappears on a mountain road in North Carolina. By the time her husband Jeff, miffed over a recent argument, reports her missing, the trail has grown cold. Literally. Fog and ice encapsulate the mountainous wilderness and paralyze the search for her.

While police suspect Jeff of “instant divorce,” Emory, suffering from an unexplained head injury, regains consciousness and finds herself the captive of a man whose violent past is so dark that he won’t even tell her his name. She’s determined to escape him, and willing to take any risks necessary to survive.

Unexpectedly, however, the two have a dangerous encounter with people who adhere to a code of justice all their own. At the center of the dispute is a desperate young woman whom Emory can’t turn her back on, even if it means breaking the law.

As her husband’s deception is revealed, and the FBI closes in on her captor, Emory begins to wonder if the man with no name is, in fact, her rescuer.

Brown began her writing career in 1981 and since then has published over seventy novels, bringing the number of copies of her books in print worldwide to upwards of eighty million. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages.

A lifelong Texan, Sandra Brown was born in Waco, grew up in Fort Worth and attended Texas Christian University, majoring in English. Before embarking on her writing career, she worked as a model at the Dallas Apparel Mart, and in television, including weathercasting for WFAA-TV in Dallas, and feature reporting on the nationally syndicated program “PM Magazine.”

In 2009 Brown detoured from her thrillers to write, Rainwater, a much acclaimed, powerfully moving story about honor and sacrifice during the Great Depression.

Brown recently was given an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Texas Christian University. She was named Thriller Master for 2008, the top award given by the International Thriller Writer’s Association. Other awards and commendations include the 2007 Texas Medal of Arts Award for Literature and the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Only a vow as binding as the one he’d made himself regarding Norman and Will Floyd could have dragged him from beneath the soft weight of Emory’s arm across his belly.

He hadn’t seen her until he pitched Norman through the front door and followed him out. She had looked at him with stark horror, but he had gone there with a purpose that even her revulsion couldn’t check.

The deed was done, and it was too late now to call it back. He wouldn’t reverse it even if he could. He didn’t regret doing it. He only regretted her having seen him do it.

That would be her last impression of him. Fresh blood on his hands. An indelible stain darker than that on his soul.

After leaving the Floyds’ place, he’d stopped at the cabin only long enough to go inside and retrieve Emory’s belongings. He’d set the fanny pack in her lap without so much as a blink of acknowledgment from her.

During the long drive down to Drakeland, she had only stared straight ahead, her hands tightly clasped, probably fearing that if she uttered a peep, she would rile the beast she’d seen unleashed.

On the outskirts of town, he’d pulled the pickup to the shoulder of the highway and put the gear in park. “About a half mile up ahead is a gas station. You can call somebody to pick you up there.”

He reached across her knees and opened the glove box, where he’d placed her phone. Earlier, as he’d silently moved about the cabin collecting her things while she slept, he had considered including her phone. He’d spent a night with her that he would die remembering. He would revisit it a million times in his fantasies.

But mistrust was second nature to him. He had decided to hold onto her phone until the very last minute.

Handing it to her, he’d told her that he’d charged the battery. “But, I would appreciate if you didn’t make that call until I get a few minutes' head start.”

She’d looked at the phone as though not recognizing what it was, then she raised her eyes to his. “You completely confound me. I don’t understand you.”

“No way you could. Don’t even try.”

“You went there expressly to fight them.”

“Yes. And I think they were expecting me. Norman was asleep in the recliner, but he had the shotgun across his lap.”

“He could have killed you.”

“He didn’t react fast enough.”

“You said something to him. You said he only thought he’d missed the excitement in Virginia. What were you talking about?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“It does concern me! I watched two men get beaten to within an inch of their lives.”

The silver trinket had burned like a live coal deep inside his jeans pocket. She still hadn’t missed it. It was too small and invaluable for her even to have noticed it was gone, but it was a treasure to him. Part of her, now his.

Wasn’t it only fair that he give her something in return? But what she’d asked for – an explanation -- he couldn’t give.

After a long moment of silence, tears had welled in her eyes. “Who are you?” By her tone, he’d known that she was demanding to learn more than his name.

He’d turned away and looked out the windshield, wanting like hell to touch her just one more time, to feel her mouth open and soft under his. But if he had, it would have been harder to let her go.

So he called up the numbness with which he armed himself to get through each day. When he’d reached across her again, it was to pull the door handle. He opened it with a shove. “Bye, Doc.”

Giveaway:

Tour-wide giveaway (US and Canada)

5 winners will each get a signed personalized copy of MEAN STREAK in Trade PB and swag (image attached) + a dozen buttercream cookies from Cheryl's.